With seven in 10 mothers in the workforce today, child care is essential. Families need affordable, high-quality child care and early learning so parents can keep working and children can get a strong start.
However, the pandemic has threatened the collapse of our child care system with hundreds of thousands of child care jobs and businesses on the line. Without child care, families will not have the necessary support to go to work or school. Women continue to be pushed out of the workforce by the lack of affordable, high-quality child care. Early educators are leaving the field—exacerbating the supply crisis—as providers can’t afford to compete with big corporations competing for workers.
What the NWLC AF Is Doing:
The National Women’s Law Center Action Fund is fighting for historic investment in child care and early learning in the Build Back Better plan. The plan includes universal pre-K and significant investments in child care that would:
- Boost the wages of early educators
- Build the supply of desperately needed child care slots, and
- Lower costs for most families by capping co-pays for those with incomes up to 250 percent of the state median income at 7% of their household income.
It’s time to pass them into law to ensure women and the families who depend on us are included in the recovery.